Well we are a little slow in getting our Holiday Cards out this year, so I decided to try my hand at making a movie.  So below is a low bandwidth movie on our European Travels thus far.  We will be send DVDs home that is of DVD widescreen quality-forwarning it is 25 minutes long.  Enjoy and we are loving Munich and European life-hope you come to visit.  For family and friends you can check out the video on our shared SkyDrive at https://cid-88559c42a20e0888.skydrive.live.com/browse.aspx/FriendsandFamily?uc=1  

 

With it being winter time of course Greg and I are hitting the slopes.  We made it on our second ski trip of the season to Lenggries.  A very easy day trip from Munich, its only a 1.5 hour train ride with a combo ski lift included in the roundtrip.  It wasn't great conditions but sunny and beautiful.  Greg has lots of pictures on his site, here are a couple below.

 

What better way to spend your first Christmas in Europe than in the romantic city of Venice.  Greg suprised me with a trip to Venice.  It was beautiful and of course we enjoyed a gondola ride through the canals.  There are over 150 canals, 450 gondola drivers and 2300 lion statutes in the city of Venice.  We took part in Midnight Christmas Mass at St. Mark's.  After Mass we headed to a local bar for a little night cap and ran into a group of locals who became our new best friends and told us all about life in Venice.  Picture below of Sam, Yohan and team-they plan to head to Berlin shortly.  It was a lovely 4 days.  We even had our Cafe Latte and Cappuccino at Cafe Florian in the square each 8.20 EUROs-that is one expensive cup of coffee especially when everywhere else they are only 1.20 EUROs.  We even had time to take in a show on the history of Venice.  Here are a couple of my favorite pictures.  For more pictures visit Greg's space at: http://cid-00ff01d44a3debf0.spaces.live.com/

 

So I am a little behind in my blogging.  So after Solden I headed off to visit the Microsoft offices in Latvia and Czech Republic.  These two countries are amazing and so beautiful.  Latvia is a very small country where majority of the population is in the Capitol City of Riga over a million.  Prague is amazing, so pretty, clean and great beer and wine!  The teams are doing an amazing job, I am so suprised how much is accomplished with such small teams compared to the size of operations in the USA.  Here are a couple pictures from the two trips and the teams.

So we made it to our three year wedding anniversary two weeks ago.  Greg was wonderful and planned our first trip to the ALPs to Solden in Austria.  It was amazing!  The village was so cute and the snow was great!  We had a fun trip with 60 of our new best friends from the Munich Ski Club.  We have to admit we spent most of our time with a bunch of british blokes that could really drink!  We saw the glacier and had amazing snowboarding expereince and listened to a band on top of the mountain.   We were exhausted but had a great time.  Our pension was great and we are really looking forward to the winter holiday on the slopes.  I go on vacation next Friday and we are ready to do several day trips and at least one that will include a SPA.  To see pictures of this trip you will have to visit my husband, Greg's space- http://cid-00ff01d44a3debf0.spaces.live.com/Photos/cns!FF01D44A3DEBF0!792/ Yes, we keep the Microsoft support in the family- everyone should have a Microsoft SPACE isn't it the greatest!  The picture below is of us enjoying a beer and Gluhwein at the top of the glacier in a great little pub with a very traditional Austrian spirit and a picture of the mountain.  

Well I am a little behind in my blogging.  So the first weekend of December we had our House Warming Party.  It was a fun fix of Expats, Toytown folks, Munich Ski Club Folks, Microsoft Folks, and our German Neighbors.  Never though 35 people could fit in our tiny little apartment.  Thanks to Alana, our Swedish friend who made us home made Glogg with a KICK!!!  Watch out a few cups of Swedish Glogg and you will be very happy all night. 

 

The following day after clean-up we headed to Tollwood and our first Christmas festival expereience.  It was fun, festive and we enjoyed more Gluhwein (German version of Glogg), it was not as strong as Alana's but quite yummy.  We also tried Honey Wine for t he first time, that was very interesting a little too sweet for my taste. 

 

Check out photos of our House Warming and Tollwood in the album library.  A couple of my favorite pictures above.

 

The following weekend we experienced all the CHristmas festivals we headed to Marienplatz, then to Muchen Freiheit and then off to Chinesischer Turm.  We partook in lots of Gluhwein to stay warm as it was -5 degrees celcius-BURR COLD!!!!  We listened to some Christmas music and then saw lots of CHristmas crafts.  You will have to head to Chinesischer Turm and have a Munich Mug that has kangaroos ice skating- I had no idea Munich was known for Kangaroos.  We are looking forward to our friends Lance and Charlotty coming on Dec 28th to partake in the festivals and Alps...